Road trip to Southern Utah

What constitutes a long term friendship?  How about 30+ years? How about even though you may only see each other every few years, when you do get together it's like nothing has changed?  Donette and I are both blessed to have several friendships like this.

Donette has known Kaj, Teresa, and Sandy since their college days at UCSB.  Kaj and Teresa live in Germany, so we don't get the chance to see them that often.  They were in the Western US for a conference, and had a few extra days to spare.  When they asked if we wanted to meet them in Southern Utah for a few days we said "of course!".  Sandy lives in Sacramento, and wanted to join the party too.  Rather than drive two vehicles out from California, we arranged to pick her up at the airport in Las Vegas on our way by.

We wanted to break up the drive, so we left CA on Friday and headed for the Mojave Preserve near Baker. 

A few miles of rough dirt road led to this Lava Tube. After a few miles of washboard Donette pointed out that we did have the mountain bikes in the back, and it would be just as fast, more comfortable, and more fun to ride the bikes.  We pulled over, unloaded bikes, and road the rest of the way.

Enjoying the desert sunset.

Evening ride through the Mojave

 

 

Saturday morning we got an early start and headed for the Vegas airport.  Approaching the arrivals area, I was remembering our close call at the Portland airport when we almost tried to drive into the parking garage with our kayaks on the roof racks.  One of the first things we did when we got the Sprinter was measure the vertical clearance so we would not find ourselves wondering just what we could squeeze under.  Sure enough, as we came around a curve we saw signs saying 7'6" clearance ahead, much too low for us.  We quickly scooted to a lane shooting off to the right, only to find another sign saying 7' clearance ahead.  Not what we wanted to see.  With only one other option, we scooted even further to the right and were rewarded with a sign saying "Oversize vehicles exit here".  Whew, we were are out of danger, but now Sandy is down there waiting for us.  We found a place to pull over, got her on the phone, and managed to connect before too long.

Our destination this afternoon is Gooseberry Mesa, a few miles outside of Hurricane UT.  It has some fabulous slickrock mountain biking trails, and since it is BLM land we can camp there as well.  We had borrowed a bike for Sandy so we could all enjoy the riding.

Donette on a flat section of the mesa

You can ride as close to the edge as you dare!

Ray riding a roller coaster section

Sandy enjoys the view from the edge

Panorama with Zion NP in the background

That evening we found a beautiful campsite on the edge of the mesa with gorgeous views of Zion NP to the east.

 

Sunday morning Donette and I got up early and did another ride, while Sandy made up for a lack of sleep the night before.  Then it was off to Virgin, UT to meet Kaj and Teresa.  Not knowing the town of Virgin at all, and wanting to make it easy to find each other, I had Googled the town looking for an easy to find place to meet.  I came up with the Kolob General Store, which according to the online map was just on the eastern edge of town, on the road we wanted to take to the northern edge of Zion Park.  Perfect! I sent the info to Kaj and Teresa before we left, secure in the knowledge we would now easily find each other.  As we drove into Virgin and headed up the Kolob Terrace Road, it soon became obvious that something was amiss.  There was no general store on the outskirts of town, and the road quickly headed out into the wilderness.  We retraced our route back to town and inquired about the whereabouts of the General Store.  Turns out it is indeed on the Kolob Terrace Road, just 24 miles north of town!  With extremely poor cell service, and Kaj and Teresea having German cell phone numbers, we were not having any luck contacting them.  Suddenly a text message popped up that they had indeed gone to the proposed meeting place, but since it was so remote assumed there was some mistake and were headed to Virgin.  A couple of minutes later a call came through, and they were at a neighboring business just a few hundred yards away. Yay, crisis averted.

We drove up the Kolob Terrace Rd into the northern part of Zion NP.  There is no entrance station here, just a cattle guard and barb wire fence to let you know you have crossed into the park.  We stopped at the first trailhead and hiked down into the North Creek drainage.  It was a short but challenging hike.  After returning to the cars, we exited the park and found a dirt track off the main road leading to the edge of the North Creek canyon.  We followed it to the end and found a great campsite, less than 1/4 mile form the road, and only about 20 yds from the NP boundary.  The wind was blowing pretty vigorously, so we used the van and car to create a windbreak for the kitchen. 

The peaks in Northern Zion awash in the evening light

Sunset behind our camp

More views from camp

Monday morning dawned chilly and breezy.  Our first plan was to explore a slot canyon, but the thought of slogging through cold water with air temps in the low 40's and wind chills in the 30's led us to reconsider that plan.  Instead, we opted for a hike out to an overlook in the upper part of the park, the Northgate Peaks trail.  The wind was brisk, but hiking was pleasant. At then end of the trail we were rewarded with some pretty views, but we all felt it had been too brief of a hike, and were looking for a little more adventure.

 This little peaklet was right at the end of the trail, and it looked like it was climbable and would afford even better views from its summit.  It was indeed a fun challenge, and we all reached the top.

Panorama with North Guardian Angel peak in the distance

The gang on top

 As we retraced our route to the car, we passed the intersection to the trail leading to the Subway slot canyon.  Subway is a challenging slot, and it is so popular that there is a lottery to get permits to enter it.  We did not have said permits, and we also did not have the gear or the time to attempt it.  We did, however, have a couple of hours and and a surfeit of energy, so we ignored the "Permits Only" sign and headed down the approach trail to check it out. This turned out to be a wonderful addition to the hike, as we dropped down sandstone slabs into an ever narrowing canyon.  We made it to the point where we could see down into the beginning of the narrow section, and then retreated to the cars.

Not wanting to camp in the cold at the higher elevations, we headed down to the town of Virgin, where there was well developed free camping along the banks of North Creek.  Our trip planning came down to the wire, as we ran out of tequila and wine on this, our last, evening.

Tuesday was departure day, and we had to return Sandy to the Vegas airport by late afternoon.  We decided to get an early start, brave the crowds, and do a hike in the heart of Zion NP.  Luna through

a bit of a wrench into the plans, as she decided that this little cave in a gulley nearby was much quieter than the ruckus associated with the five of us breaking camp.  Luckily, she poked her head out to see what all the commotion was as we were searching nearby.  With that escapade behind us, it was off to the park.

The park was extremely crowded, at least by our standards, but we found parking just outside the park, walked in, and were soon in a Disneyland-ish, zig-zagging line of tourists waiting for a shuttle bus.  The NPS has the system down pretty well though, and it was a realtively brief wait before we were on board and headed up the canyon.  We told the ranger at the visitor center that we had about 3 hours, and wanted a strenuous hike, thinking that would thin out the crowds somewhat.  He pointed toward the Weeping Rock trailhead and the hike to Hidden Canyon.  It was an excellent suggestion!

The hike begins by switchbacking up what appears to be a vertical wall.

Looking back down at the trailhead and the Virgin River

The main trail heads on up to the East Rim trail, but we took a narrow side spur to Hidden Valley.

The trail skirts the edge of the cliffs, but there are usually some chain handrails to hold on to when it gets really narrow.

We then entered Hidden Valley itself, a beautiful narrow canyon that required a bit of scrambling to access

A natural ladder

Kaj and Teresa, the inspiration for the trip

Heading back down

After finishing the hike said our goodbyes to Kaj and Teresa, who were going to continue to explore the area for the next few days.  We took the bus back to the car and hit the road for Vegas. We dropped Sandy off and drove a bit further, pulling off the freeway into the Mojave Preserve again.  We didn't go quite so far from the freeway this time, and the World's Tallest Thermometer was visible off in the distance.

We took a brief hike near camp in the morning, visited the incredibly kitschy Alien Jerky store in Baker, and hit the road for home.  As we drove across the desert, we decide to pull out the Mountain Bike Project app and see if there were any good rides along our route home.  We found a couple of prospects in Tehachapi and decided to give one a try.  We found an area with lots of trails, and many more in the process of being built by the local trail association.  Needless to say, in an area with a thousand windmills the wind was blowing briskly.  It gave us a nice boost uphill, and kept us from getting overheated.

Donette rides a new section of flow trail in the foreground, while workers in mammoth machinery toil away at removing a mountain in the background

As we continued our drive home we realized that it was almost exactly 8 years ago to the weekend that we were last in Southern Utah, celebrating Skip's 50th birthday by riding the Whole Enchilada in Moab.  We made a vow to not wait another 8 years to return to this beautiful corner of our world.